Monday, Jul 16, 2007, 1:23 am

An internal investigation that the House Intelligence Committee has refused to make public portrays the panel as embarrassingly entangled in the Randy "Duke" Cunningham bribery scandal.
(...)
The document describes breakdowns in leadership and controls that it says allowed Cunningham — the former congressman (R-Rancho Santa Fe) who began an eight-year prison term last year for taking bribes and evading taxes — to use his House position to steer millions of dollars to corrupt contractors.

When the committee's investigation was completed last year, the Republican-controlled panel would not release the results; now that the committee is controlled by Democrats, it still will not release the findings.
(...)
Overall, the document provides a penetrating look into how the committee itself became central to the scandal, describing an atmosphere in which senior aides were deeply troubled by Cunningham's actions but nevertheless complied with his requests out of fear.

But the report and committee members' ongoing disagreement over whether it should be released also reflect the political currents still swirling around the scandal.

For all its finger-pointing at staffers, the document fails to address whether other committee members were aware of Cunningham's abuses or were culpable. For instance, the report avoids any scrutiny of former Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), who was chairman of the panel when Cunningham's most egregious abuses occurred. Goss went on to serve as CIA director, from September 2004 to May 2006.

Democrats complained bitterly a year ago when Republicans blocked release of a declassified version of the final report. But two weeks ago, several Democrats joined Republicans to block the report's release only to other members of Congress. Five Democrats objected to keeping the report secret.

Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), who assumed leadership of the committee after Democrats won control of Congress last fall, said some Democratic members were reluctant to release a document that singled out staff members for criticism.
(...)
Congressional sources said Reyes and other Democrats had initially voted to let other members of Congress see the document, but reversed course after a fierce protest by the panel's ranking GOP member, Peter Hoekstra of Michigan.

"They are so nervous about this report being out," said one congressional official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Members oppose putting this thing out because you read this and the natural question is: 'Did you know this, and what did you do about it?' I don't think any members wanted that scrutiny."
(...)
The report's principal author said in an interview that the terms under which he was hired to conduct the investigation prevented him from examining lawmakers' roles.

With all due deference to the idea that there is too much money in politics, I am not sure that this behavior is due to love of money; rather, I think it is due to love of power. Even if these guys were limited to $1 campaigns, they would still not be inclined to allow information that casts them in a bad light out to the public. The real money these guys make comes after they leave office, when they give speeches, become lobbyists, or work for corporations in some other capacity. What drives them while they are in office is keeping their record clean, so they can get the cushy post-Congress jobs, and the perks of office: staff, free travel, adulation, spending other people’s money.

-----Posted by Mitch on 2007-07-16 17:23:26

Farmer:

With great respect for your dismay and desire to find some solution to the problem, I humbly suggest that you really don’t want people like Joe Lieberman, James Inhofe, Trent Lott, Sam Brownback, Ted Stevens, Tom Coburn Dan Burton, Virgil Goode, Duncan Hunter, Darrell Issa, Dana Rohrabacher, Don Young (or so many many others) to be making the kinds of monumentally significant decisions that would be made at a constitutional convention.

Posted by Brian Zick on 2007-07-16 12:47:37

While it pains me that my own party member’s have acted in such a manner, it doesn’t surprise me any more. It does disgust me, just as I have heard Republican’s express disgust at the actions (or lack) of their party member’s and leader.
But, until we all understand that we will get more of the same unless we insist on laws removing big money from campaigns, nothing will change.
It will take a Constitutional Convention, as no politician is going to be willing to turn away from all that money.
Consider this: A law preventing any one not eligible to vote for a candidate from donating more than $2000 to that candidate. Backed up by mandatory prison time, 10 years, say, and forfeiture of the illegal donation.
That removes lobbyist’s, corporations, unions, PAC’s, 527’s and the overly rich from being able to use money to advance their cause.
In this day of mass communication and the Internet, no politician needs massive amounts of money to get their message across.
And not having massive amounts of money will remove those who are in it for the money and allow other’s who have a desire to serve to do so.
And wasn’t that what the Founding Father’s envisioned?
I would imagine that calling for such a convention would bring out every kook, so it would need to be limited in scope; just dealing with campaign finances.
To me, it would be so nice to see a sitting politician do something because it was best for the country, rather than doing what some special interest wanted.

Posted by farmer on 2007-07-16 09:02:31

About this Blog

And then there was blogging: The ITT List offers all the news that isn't fit to print, from In These Times's staff, writers and friends.